University of Wisconsin

The University of Wisconsin-Madison was established back in 1848 and today is part of the Big 10 conference in regards to athletics. UW-Madison has received high acclaim in regards to maintaining high academic standards. In addition to being considered a Public Ivy school as an institution dedicated to providing an Ivy league type education at a more affordable public school price. As recently as 2009 Madison was ranked in the Top 600 by Forbes for one of the best colleges in the country, a list dominated by private institutions.